By Henrylito D. Tacio
“Just recently, the DENR (Department of Environment and Natural Resources) has informed us that they are resuming efforts to proceed with the (waste-to-energy) project, specifically funding support from them by year 2026.”
The statement came from the mouth of Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte during the State of the City Address (SOCA) 2024.
The waste-to-energy (WTE) project came into the picture because of the garbage problem Davao City is now facing.
It must be recalled that in 2022, First District Councilor Temujin “Tek” Ocampo said the city generates 600 to 800 tons of wastes daily. With such a huge amount of garbage, the “new sanitary landfill located just beside the existing dumpsite” would be filled out “in five years’ time.”
“Davao City is big so we must control the waste generation,” said Ocampo during a media briefing at that time at The Royal Mandaya Hotel. “That garbage of ours at the edge of the sea will eventually disappear because it will be included there. No one else has seen that would dramatically reduce the waste problem in Davao and if (WTE plant) is built, I believe that other cities will follow suit, especially Metro Manila, which generates a lot of waste.”
The construction of WTE is seen to be the immediate possible solution to the gargantuan problem. WTE, a form of energy recovery, is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity and/or heat from the primary treatment of waste, or the processing of waste into a fuel source.
“Waste-to-energy plants burn municipal solid waste (MSW), often called garbage or trash, to produce steam in a boiler, and the steam is used to power an electric generator turbine,” the US Energy Information Administration explains.
MSW is a mixture of energy-rich materials such as paper, plastics, yard waste, and products made from wood. In the United States, for every 45 kilograms of MSW, about 38 kilograms can be burned as fuel to generate electricity. Waste-to-energy plants reduce 907 kilograms of garbage to ash that weighs between 136 kilograms and 272 kilograms, and they reduce the volume of waste by about 87%.
The facility to reduce Davao City’s solid waste and turn it into electricity will be built with the help of a grant from Japan. In fact, the P2.5 billion has already been provided for the project by the Japanese government through official development assistance (ODA)
However, last May, Ocampo, who is the chairperson of the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, disclosed to media that an Australian firm has gotten in touch with the Davao City Investment Promotion Center (DCIPC) expressing its interest in pursuing the WTE project in the city.
This was relayed to him by DCIPC. He found that the European firm has a good track record in energy generation.
“Their technology would create energy from waste without incineration, no burning,” said Ocampo at the Aprubado sa Konseho media briefing. “That’s the new technology that they are going to apply. I think they are looking at a 50-megawatt power plant. But then again such a big power plant needs a lot of waste and Davao City alone cannot provide that waste. They are very aggressive.”
Brian Nana-Sinkam, in a paper submitted to Stanford University, said “we can expect global waste production to increase to 6 million tons per day by 2025, and by the end of the century, we could witness a whopping 11 million tons of waste generation per day.”
Nana-Sinkam based his statistics from the 2016 report of the World Energy Council. “Although WTE only holds a minimal 6% of the global waste management market, its growth will boast contribution in the fight against the impending increase in waste generation,” he said.
Ocampo, during the 2022 media briefing, said the planned WTE plant in Davao City would operate in a way that would protect both the environment and public health. According to him, building a WTE would be one of the tactics the local government would use to solve the issue, not the end of other solid waste management techniques like segregation.
The announcement of Mayor Duterte during his SOCA, however, caught the attention of the Interfacing Development Interventions for Sustainability (IDIS).
“IDIS has always been vocal in its opposition to the Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration Project due to its adverse effects on humans and the environment,” IDIS said in a statement released to the media.
“As we always reiterate, burning waste produces highly hazardous chemicals such as dioxins and furans. These toxic chemicals are known to be carcinogenic, impact the neurological development of children, cause respiratory diseases, and pollute our water and air,” IDIS said.
Not only that, WTE is said to “exacerbate the effects of climate change.” The likely reason: “it incites the city to produce more waste to keep the facility running.” IDIS added, “It would even result in the importation of waste from other provinces or regions just to meet the minimum requirements.”
Dr. Jorge Emmanuel, a distinguished professor and environmental scientist, also said: “WTE is simply waste incineration in disguise. It burns tons of municipal wastes to generate a small amount of net energy while emitting massive amounts of toxic pollutants and greenhouse gases.”
Dr. Emmanuel substantiates the fears that waste incinerators do fail to live up to their promises. “Continuous monitoring of the state-of-the-art waste-to-energy plant in Harlingen, Netherlands revealed dioxin levels exceeding legal limits so much so that grass and eggs in farms up to 10 kilometers away had high amounts of dioxins. Even when governments adopt international emission standards, it doesn’t guarantee that dangerous emissions aren’t being released, especially in developing countries where there is no technical capacity to monitor emissions continuously.”
“Incinerators feed on highly combustible waste like plastic. Mostly made from fossil fuels, plastic that are burned in incinerators will add more than 850 million metric tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere—equal to the pollution from 189 new 500-megawatt coal-fired power plants,” said Yobel Novian Putra of Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA) Asia Pacific.
Instead of pushing for a WTE plant, IDIS has been urging the city government to opt for zero waste solutions. These include reducing plastic usage, enhancing segregation system facilities, segregated-based collection, composting facilities, Materials Recovery Facilities (MRF), and supporting Community-Based Waste Management systems, small-scale recycling and composting enterprises, and resource collectors.
“The barangay local government unit of Mintal has been supporting the initiatives of the Mintal Resource Collectors Association,” IDIS reported. “The collected waste in barangay Mintal has dropped drastically after its inception – from 24 tons of garbage per collection to 8-9 tons of garbage, and still aiming for zero waste.” – ###
